New owner starts work on former Vreba-Hoff dairy

A Wisconsin dairy business is working to get one of three former Vreba-Hoff facilities near Hudson in shape to begin milk production next spring.

“We would like to be milking by spring,” said Bill Harke, spokesman for Milk Source Inc. “We’ll get one of them up and running and then the next and then the next.”

The three facilities were closed after Rabo AgriFinance foreclosed in 2011 on delinquent loans to the Vreba-Hoff dairies. Milk Source purchased the dairies and 2,250 acres of farmland in late August.

The company announced it planned to invest up to $90 million in the facilities and hire up to 100 full-time employees to run them.

Harke said Friday that contractors will be working through the winter on remodeling the former Vreba-Hoff II facility on U.S. 127.

“A lot of things have to be upgraded to our standards,” Harke said.

Milk Source has also been meeting with Michigan Department of Environmental Quality officials.

“Through the whole process they’ve been working with us. It’s been a pretty good relationship,” he said.

He said Milk Source has “a long history of working within the rules.” The company has operated large dairy farms in Wisconsin since the 1990s and is experienced in manure management and meeting environmental regulations, he said.

Violations of environmental rules involving manure resulted in multiple lawsuits by the state against the Vreba-Hoff dairies, as well as complaints from neighboring residents.

Harke said Milk Source uses a screw press system in Wisconsin to separate solid manure before it is applied to crop land. It also has a recycling process for sand used for cattle bedding.

Plans call for eventually milking 3,400 cows at each of the three dairy facilities near Hudson, Harke said. Five or six milk tanker trucks a day will be filled at each dairy.

Hiring for the first dairy is expected to begin after the first of the year, he said.

No agreements have been made yet, he said, for purchase of cattle for the dairies or marketing the milk they will produce.

“There is no shortage of people who are interested in selling us cows,” Harke said.

The company has also hosted local feed growers on a tour of its dairy facilities in Wisconsin, Harke said.